This invention relates to automatic electric toasters for reheating baked goods and, more specifically, but not by way of limitation, to a combination sliced bread and tortilla toaster. A tortilla is a very thin slice of unleavened bread. They are usually circular and significantly larger in overall length than conventional slices of bread. Standard toasters available cannot toast tortillas because of this narrow width and large diameter. Prior art discloses several efforts to make toasters accommodate varying thicknesses and shapes of bread, but none have attempted to accommodate for the unique features of tortillas.
For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 2,788,734, issued to Weeks, discloses a toaster which has slots that can be enlarged to toast buns which are substantially thicker than conventional sliced bread. The mechanism taught by Weeks '734 cannot reheat thin pieces of baked goods, such as tortillas, because its design limits the width of its slot to the minimum width of conventional sliced bread. U.S. Pat. No. 2,865,282, issued to Brown et al., discloses another effort to produce toasters with variable slot widths. This design simply does not allow for heating of very thin slices of bread, such as tortillas. Neither of these patents takes into account the possibility of heating tortillas, as the designs do not allow for the narrow width, the "floppy," non-rigid nature, and the relatively larger diameters of tortillas. The present invention discloses dual internal mechanisms which narrow the gauge width of slots and enlarge the overall length of the heating compartments.
The size of the average bread toaster in general use today varies, but is normally just high enough for the usual slices of bread which are squares of approximately four inches on each side. Prior art does not provide for a toaster which is designed to be varied in internal dimensions to enable toasting of a "standard" slice of bread then convert to warming or toasting of lengthier tortillas. The primary feature of the present invention is its ability to switch from dimensions accommodating the shorter, wider bread slices to ones of the much longer and much narrower tortillas and still permit easy access to the heated products after they "pop up" from the toaster. Additionally, the non-rigid nature of a tortilla requires sensitive dimensional adjustability in slot spacing and a heat temperature varying means to avoid burning the thin tortilla.
Tortillas have traditionally been popular in the Southwest region and have only recently been widely accepted throughout the United States. The widescale acceptance has been due to an increasing demand for Mexican food by the "Anglo" segment of the population. With ever increasing numbers of Mexican restaurants, more and more people have been exposed to foods such as tortillas. This exposure has overflowed into domestic kitchens, and tortillas are readily available in the frozen-food sections of most major supermarket chains. However, warming tortillas is a constantly re-occurring problem encountered in both restaurant galleys and domestic kitchens.
Tortillas are best served hot and present methods to warm them include horizontal heaters, conventional ovens, mini-grill stoves and microwave ovens, none of which are entirely satisfactory or convenient. This is especially true in the domestic dining room. Standard bread toasters were invented as an answer to the inconvenience of toasting regular bread slices in the kitchen and the desire to have counter or table-top machines which could toast bread simply and efficiently. The present invention, likewise, is directed towards convenience, simplicity, and ease of heating tortillas, while retaining ability to toast regular bread.
Because of the ever increasing Hispanic poPulation and the ever increasing demand for Mexican food among non-Hispanic peoples, this apparatus will become a common household item.